“Never give up.” It’s probably one of the most cliché phrases you’ll
hear as you’re building your career. But there’s a reason these sayings
are clichés—you never know when success really does lie around the next
corner.
We know believing that is easier said than done, so we collected the following stories of famous celebrities who definitely never gave up, including Sarah Jessica Parker, Stephen King, and J.K. Rowling, for starters.
All these folks are now household names, but they didn’t become one
easily. Some lived in their car, others suffered family abuse, and
almost all encountered rejection after rejection professionally and personally—before finally landing a foot in the door. Read on and get inspired!
1. J.K. Rowling
J.K. Rowling had just gotten a divorce, was on government aid, and
could barely afford to feed her baby in 1994, just three years before
the first Harry Potter book,
Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone,
was published. When she was shopping it out, she was so poor she
couldn’t afford a computer or even the cost of photocopying the
90,000-word novel, so she manually typed out each version to send to
publishers. It was rejected dozens of times
until finally Bloomsbury, a small London publisher, gave it a second
chance after the CEO’s eight year-old daughter fell in love with it.
2. Stephen King
King was broke and struggling when he was first trying to write. He
lived in a trailer with his wife—also a writer—and they both worked multiple jobs
to support their family while pursuing their craft. They were so poor
they had to borrow clothes for their wedding and had gotten rid of the
telephone because it was too expensive.
King received so many rejection letters for his works that he developed a system for collecting them. In his book
On Writing,
he recalls: “By the time I was 14...the nail in my wall would no longer
support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced
the nail with a spike and kept on writing.” He received 60 rejections
before selling his first short story, "The Glass Floor," for $35. Even
his now best-selling book,
Carrie, wasn’t a hit at first. After
dozens of rejections, he finally sold it for a meager advance to
Doubleday Publishing, where the hardback sold only 13,000 copies—not
great. Soon after, though, Signet Books signed on for the paperback
rights for $400,000, $200,000 of which went to King. Success achieved!
3. Jim Carrey
When Carrey was 14 years old, his father lost his job,
and his family hit rough times. They moved into a VW van on a
relative’s lawn, and the young aspiring comedian—who was so dedicated to
his craft that he mailed his resume to
The Carroll Burnett Show just a few years earlier, at age 10—took an eight-hours-per-day factory job after school to help make ends meet.
At age 15, Carrey performed his comedy routine onstage for the first
time—in a suit his mom made him—and totally bombed, but he was
undeterred. The next year, at 16, he quit school to focus on comedy full
time. He moved to LA shortly after, where he would park on Mulholland
Drive every night and visualize his success. One of these nights he
wrote himself a check for $10,000,000 for “Acting Services Rendered,”
which he dated for Thanksgiving 1995. Just before that date, he hit his
payday with
Dumb and Dumber. He put the deteriorated check, which he’d kept in his wallet the whole time, in his father’s casket.
4. Tyler Perry
Perry had a rough childhood. He was physically and sexually abused
growing up, got kicked out of high school, and tried to commit suicide
twice—once as a preteen and again at 22. At 23 he moved to Atlanta and
took up odd jobs as he started working on his stage career.
In 1992 he wrote, produced, and starred in his first theater production,
I Know I’ve Been Changed, somewhat informed by his difficult upbringing. Perry put all his savings
into the show and it failed miserably; the run lasted just one weekend
and only 30 people came to watch. He kept up with the production,
working more odd jobs and often slept in his car to get by. Six years
later, Perry finally broke through when, on its seventh run, the show
became a success. He’s since gone on to have an extremely successful
career as a director, writer, and actor. In fact, Perry was named
Forbes’ highest paid man in entertainment in 2011.
5. Sarah Jessica Parker
Parker was born in a poor coal-mining town in rural Ohio, the
youngest of four children. Her parents divorced when she was two, and
her mother remarried shortly thereafter and had an additional four
children. Parker’s stepfather, a truck driver, was often out of work, so
the future starlet took up singing and dancing at a very young age to
help supplement her mom’s teaching income and feed their 10-person
family.
Despite hard times and occasionally being on welfare, Parker’s mom continued to encourage her children’s interest in the arts.
The family moved to Cincinnati, where Parker was enrolled in a ballet,
music, and theater school on scholarship. When she was 11 years old, the
family took a trip to New York City so Parker could audition for a
Broadway play. The trip was a success—she and her brother were both
cast, and the family relocated to New York. Parker continued to work
hard and land roles, eventually becoming the title character of TV
juggernaut
Sex and the City.
6. Colonel (Harland) Sanders
Colonel Harland Sanders was fired from a variety of jobs throughout
his career before he first started cooking chicken in his roadside Shell
Service Station in 1930, when he was 40 years old, during the Great
Depression. His gas station didn’t actually have a restaurant, so he
served diners in his attached personal living quarters.
Over the next 10 years, he perfected his “Secret Recipe” and pressure
fryer cooking method for his famous fried chicken and moved onto bigger
locations. His chicken was even praised in the media by food critic
Duncan Hines (yes, that Duncan Hines). However, as the interstate came
through the Kentucky town where the Colonel’s restaurant was located in
the 1950s, it took away important road traffic, and the Colonel was
forced to close his business and retire,
essentially broke. Worried about how he was going to survive off his
meager $105 monthly pension check, he set out to find restaurants who
would franchise his secret recipe—he wanted a nickel for each piece of
chicken sold. He drove around, sleeping in his car, and was rejected
more than 1,000 times before finally finding his first partner.
Photo of courtesy of Wikimedia.
7. Shania Twain
Twain’s career actually began more out of necessity than raw
ambition. Her parents divorced when she was two, and she rarely saw her
father. Her mom and stepfather, to whom she grew close, often couldn’t
make enough to get by, so Twain started singing in bars to make extra
money when she was just eight years old.
She recalls her mother waking her up at all hours to get up and
perform. Sadly, when she was 21, her mother and stepfather were killed
in a head-on car accident with a logging truck on the highway. Twain put
her career on hold to step in and take care of her three younger
siblings (who were in their teens at the time). She sang in resorts and
put off going after big-time stardom until her sister and brothers were
old enough to care for themselves. Only once her youngest brother
graduated high school did she feel OK heading down to Nashville to
pursue her career.
8. Emily Blunt
Before Blunt was getting nominated for Golden Globes and landing
leading roles on the stage and big screen, she could barely carry a
conversation with her classmates: Between ages seven and 14, Emily had a
major stutter. As she told
W magazine, "I was a smart kid, and
had a lot to say, but I just couldn't say it. It would just haunt me. I
never thought I'd be able to sit and talk to someone like I'm talking
to you right now."
But that all changed when one of her junior high teachers encouraged
her to try out for the school play—a totally unappealing feat given the
fact that she had such a hard time communicating. But the teacher kept
gently pressing and suggested she try accents and character voices to
help get the words out—and it worked. By the end of her teens, Blunt had
overcome her stutter and went on to achieve the successful career she has now.
9. Oprah Winfrey
Oprah’s dealt with a lot throughout her public life—criticism about
her weight, racism, intrusive questions about her sexuality, just to
name a few—but she never let it get in the way of her ambition and
drive. When you look at her childhood, her personal triumphs are cast in
an even more remarkable light.
Growing up, Oprah was reportedly a victim of sexual abuse and was
repeatedly molested by her cousin, an uncle, and a family friend. Later,
she became pregnant and gave birth to a child at age 14, who passed
away just two weeks later. But Oprah persevered, going on to finish high
school as an honors student, earning a full scholarship to college, and
working her way up through the ranks of television, from a local
network anchor in Nashville to an international superstar and creator of
her OWN network (we couldn’t help ourselves).
